Behind us, the doors pushed open and a frantic group of humans flooded the terrace. They ran for their lives and would have trampled Ziggy, had I not knelt over him and shielded his vulnerable body.

“Ziggy, can you hear me?” I pulled him into my lap and pressed my hand to the oozing wound on his neck. Blood should have been spraying from his gashed throat, if there was enough blood left to spray. He opened his eyes, but they rolled back into his head as his body seized in my arms.

Most of the pets ran straight for the maze, herded toward it by the pursuing vampires. A few of the humans broke away from the crowd and were caught as they tried to climb the garden walls.

Cyrus watched for a long moment, something akin to pride on his face. Then he turned to us and raised his wrist. “Shall I turn him, or will you?”

“No!” I shouted again, trying to cover Ziggy by leaning over him, but my answer was swallowed up by the pandemonium. “I made a mistake. I wanted him to live.”

“Well, it’s not bloody likely now, is it?” Cyrus asked dispassionately. “Look, we’ll get you another one.”

Tears rolled down my cheeks, stinging my cold flesh. “This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.”

Cyrus frowned. “What are you talking about?”

He suspected something. Amid the screams and destruction around us, I let my guard down, my guilt and terror flooding the blood tie.

Over all this, a new sound emerged. The steady thump of rotary blades chopping through the air. I’d often heard the sound at the hospital, when accident victims were brought in by helicopter.

The medical chopper had nothing on the three sleek, black, military-style copters that dipped below the tree line. I stared up at the sky, transfixed by the whirling blades. My heart swelled with a mixture of dread and hope. The hour of salvation had arrived, too late for Ziggy.

Or me, for that matter. Without him, my safety wasn’t assured. I wrapped my arms around Ziggy’s chest and stood, half lifting him. He gasped and a cascade of blood poured over my hands. He wasn’t going to last much longer.

Cyrus shouted frantically to his guards. New screams erupted from the hedge maze, the petrified cries of vampires trapped like foxes in snares, as one by one they realized what was happening. The helicopters’ floodlights snapped on and pure UV rays drenched the lawn in artificial sunlight.

The heat and glare made my skin sizzle, but there wasn’t enough direct exposure to kill me on the shaded porch where we were. Others weren’t so lucky. The few vampires who made it clear of the maze exploded into flame and burned before they could reach the terrace. Only a handful made it to the house, pushing past us and charging through the glass doors.

Long ropes fell from both sides of each helicopter and dark figures dropped onto the lawn.